39d 



NEW YORK CITY. 



of Mr. Carnegie to provide the funds necessary 

 for the building and equipment of 05 branch li- 

 braries of the New York Public Library, recites 

 that the city must provide ground on which the 

 buildings are to be erected. The enabling act of 

 the Legislature by which the city ot New York 

 was authorized to accept Mr. Carnegie's offer is 

 printed in the contract in full. The agreement 

 says that the existing free public libraries are not 

 to be incorporated in this arrangement. The con- 

 tract then says that the city shall proceed to ac- 

 quire by gift, condemnation, or purchase such 

 sites as may be necessary, not to .exceed 42 in 

 Manhattan, Bronx, and Richmond. The city is 

 authorized, by the unanimous vote of the Board 

 of Estimate and the Sinking-Fund Commission, 

 to use any real estate now owned by the city 

 and not used for other purposes for a library site 

 under the contract. In October the secretary of 

 the New York Public Library said that a site 

 on East 79th Street, near Second Avenue, had 

 been secured and approved by the Board of Esti- 

 mate. Other sites were under consideration, and 

 the services of a board of architects had been 

 secured to supervise the designing and construc- 

 tion of the different branches. Subsequent to the 

 gift by Mr. Carnegie a number of sites were of- 

 fered for the library by generous-minded citizens. 



Underground Rapid Transit. Work on the 

 subway for the new underground rapid-transit 

 railroad, which was begun in September, 1900, 

 progressed during the year with astonishing ra- 

 pidity. The first annual report of the Rapid- 

 Transit Commission showed that more than 200 

 blocks had been opened in various sections of the 

 city, reaching from City Hall to the Bronx. They 

 had expended then $8,500,000, and one-fourth of 

 the tunneling work had been done. The average 

 monthly expenditure had been more than $750,000, 

 and the average number of men engaged in the 

 work was 7,500. Twenty-five blocks were prac- 

 tically completed, according to the report, and 17 

 blocks of rock tunnel were finished, while 1,000,000 

 cart-loads of earth and rock had been removed 

 and 2,000,000 days' work done. Since the an- 

 nual report was issued the work has progressed 

 with still greater rapidity. Extra steam and 

 electric machinery necessary to supply power was 

 secured, so that when 1902 came in the prelimi- 

 nary work had all been done. At that time 35 

 per cent, of the entire work was completed 58 

 per cent, of the excavation and 36 per cent, of 

 the rock removed, at a total cost of $12,500,000. 

 Work was then proceeding at a cost of $1,000,000 

 a month. 



Deputy Chief-Engineer George S. Rice then cal- 

 culated that trains would be running over the 

 underground route by the latter part'of August 

 or the early part of September, 1903, while Con- 

 tractor John B. McDonald's agreement does not 

 call for its completion before August, 1904. By 

 far the greatest part of the work has been done 

 on the 5 most difficult sections the down-town 

 loop or terminus, in City Hall Park, the 59th 

 Street section, three of the tunneling sections, 

 and that at the circle at Eighth Avenue, at the 

 west-side entrance to Central Park. .At this last 

 point the work was completed, and beyond doubt 

 it was the most difficult of all. Here the tunnel 

 passes under three lines of surface-car tracks, and 

 thence northward along the new Broadway under 

 double sets of electric-car tracks. At this point 

 the first completed rapid-transit station, with 

 every modern improvement, has been roofed over, 

 ready for use. It is glazed with white, and has 

 the appearance of a well-finished building rather 

 than that of a railway tunnel. 



The work between City Hall and Great Jones 

 Street, now practically completed, gave much 

 trouble to the laborers, owing to the fact that 

 the old canal from which Canal Street got its 

 name still rises and falls, at the depth to which 

 they had to go, with low and high tide on the 

 river fronts; and the shifting of the sands caused 

 by this disturbance required extra precautions in 

 shoring up many buildings between City Hall and 

 Canal Street. At City Hall, the main road's ter- 

 minal loop, the extensive vehicular traffic, in con- 

 junction with the numerous surface railway-lines 

 along Park Row, made the work particularly 

 heavy and tedious; but these obstacles have been 

 overcome, and the work has been roofed over. 



Under the old Park Avenue tunnel, on Fourth 

 Avenue, almost solid rock was encountered from 

 32d Street to the Grand Central station at 42d 

 Street; but the excavation of the rock in Murray 

 Hill and under the Park Avenue tunnel was ac- 

 complished, and a half mile of the tunnel was 

 practically completed there. 



Four blocks of tunnel were carved out of the 

 foot-hills at Washington Heights, where two sta- 

 tions will be more than 100 feet below the sur- 

 face of Eleventh Avenue. All the rock taken out 

 here from this great depth was removed by hoist- 

 ing through shafts. Near the north end of Cen- 

 tral Park, where the road will branch off to carry 

 East Side passengers under Central Park to the 

 borough of the Bronx, a good deal of work was 

 done in blasting and tunneling the rocky cliffs. 



Along the east side of Union Square and north- 

 ward in Fourth Avenue, all the deep rock was 

 removed, and the work was well advanced. Con- 

 siderable progress has been made on the Bronx 

 branch, and the construction of two iron tubular 

 tunnels under Harlem river, which will connect 

 it with the Manhattan section, was also going 

 on well. Running north from Melrose Avenue, 

 in the Bronx, where the underground tracks will 

 emerge from the tunnel and connect with the 

 elevated road, which will continue to the northern 

 terminus, work was fairly well advanced. There 

 was considerable tunneling . around the point 

 where the tracks will emerge. In Lenox Avenue, 

 between Central Park and Harlem, a great section 

 of the tunnel was roofed and ready for the laying 

 of the track* 



A block of ground extending from 58th to 59th 

 Street, along the North river, was acquired, to be 

 used for the erection of the main power-house for 

 the road. In December the Rapid-Transit Sub- 

 way Construction Company purchased a plot of 

 ground, consisting of about 150 city lots, on either 

 side of Harlem river. This will be used for vari- 

 ous stations on the Lenox Avenue branch of the 

 road, leading from the main line to the borough 

 of the Bronx, and for the erection of an addi- 

 tional power-house. 



This year considerable changes were made in 

 the proposed route for the road. That finally de- 

 cided upon shows that, starting from the City 

 Hall, there will be 4 tracks running north on Elm 

 Street and Fourth Avenue to the Grand Central 

 station on 42d Street, thence westerly to Broad- 

 way, then northerly to 104th Street; then 3 

 tracks continue up Broadway to 169th Street, 

 thence up Eleventh Avenue to Fort George, where 

 they will connect with an elevated road extend- 

 ing as far north as Bailey Avenue. At 104th 

 Street and Broadway a two-track road will 

 branch off easterly under Central Park, and at 

 110th Street will turn up Lenox Avenue, passing 

 under Harlem river and running northward on 

 the Southern Boulevard and Boston Road to 

 Bronx Park. 



